About the Global Footprint Network
Our mission is to promote a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological
Footprint, a measurement tool that makes the reality of planetary limits
relevant to decision-makers.

European
Environment Agency Launches "The European Environment
- State and Outlook 2005" - Global Ecological Limits
a Central Theme

November 29, 2005

Today in Brussels the European Environment Agency (EEA)
released its much awaited report The
European Environment - State and Outlook 2005,
featuring the Ecological Footprint, which shows that
it takes 2.1 times the biological capacity of Europe
to support Europe.

Jacqueline
McGlade

"In formulating policy today, Europe ...has an obligation
to look beyond ... its own borders," states Jacqueline
McGlade, Executive Director, European Environment Agency.
"Europe cannot continue down the path of achieving
its short-term objectives by impacting disproportionately
on the rest of the world's environment through its Ecological
Footprint."

Michael
Meacher

EEA commissioned Global
Footprint Network and its partners, Stockholm
Environment Institute, New
Economics Foundation and WWF
International to prepare a special subreport on
Europe's interaction with the global environment, which
in turn informed the State and Outlook 2005 report.
Michael
Meacher, MP and former UK Minister of Environment,
emphasizes the importance of this analysis, stating
that "Understanding our ecological demand and its reach
beyond national boundaries allows us to get prepared
for the future. It is not that different from our financial
expenditures. If we don't track them, we waste them;
if we overdraw our 'ecological accounts,' we are undermining
our future."

Europe's well-being and economic performance depend
on healthy ecosystems. Europe's stewardship of its own
lands has been relatively stable for the past 40 years,
and the large rise in European consumption has been
fed mainly by non-domestic resources. In 1961, Europe's
consumption exceeded its own biocapacity by just a few
per cent; by 2002, Europe was using more than twice
its own biocapacity.

Georgina
M. Mace

Georgina M. Mace, Director of Science, Zoological
Society of London summarizes it this way: "In a global
economy, wealthy urban centres get much of their supply
from far away. They depend on ecosystems they have
never seen. Hence, overused and failing ecosystems,
even if distant, become a threat to the well-being
of these very urban centres."

Europe (defined as the 25 EU countries plus Switzerland)
is the largest economy in world history, and its consumption
has never been greater. In her speech, Jacqueline
McGlade said, "Europeans' consumption may be
half of that of people living in the USA, but it is
double that of people living in Brazil, India and
China."

In
1961, the population of European nations made up over
12 percent of world population with a demand on global
ecological capacity of just under 10 percent. By 2002,
Europe's population comprised only 7 percent of the
world total but its demand on global ecological capacity
doubled, to nearly 20 percent.

What
are the opportunities for Europe today? McGlade
explained that "Many of our envrionmental problems
are rooted in the way we use our land, the way we
trade and the way we consume." The report lays
out an economic policy framework for addressing these
issues focusing on:

shifting
taxes away from labor and investment and toward
pollution and the inefficient use of materials and
land;

economic
reforms shifing subsidies that are applied to transport,
housing and agriculture; and

Similarly,
Ernst
Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Chairman of the German
Bundestag Environment Committee and author of the book
Factor Four says "It helps to look into the truth mirror.
But what can we do to stop exporting Footprints that
devastate the outside world? Well, technologies and
habits are available to reduce the size of our Footprints
by a factor of two or even four without jeopardising
the quality of our European life."

Stay
tuned for more from EEA and Global Footprint Network
Global Footprint Network's contribution to the State
and Outlook 2005 is only one part of this large
and comprehensive report. Stay tuned for an upcoming
stand alone excerpt of the report (current working title:
More than Two Europes: The European Footprint)
scheduled for publication by the EEA next year. This
excerpt will explore in greater detail the Footprint
implications of European trade flows, social trends,
and policies for decoupling economic performance and
ecological impact and will discuss options and scenarios
for reducing Europe's Footprint.

As part of the research and analysis for the State
and Outlook 2005 report, the EEA funded Global
Footprint Network's update of its National
Biocapacity and Footprint Accounts, the underlying
dataset which serves as the basis for all Footprint
analyses worldwide. A summary of the new Accounts are
available on EEA's
website.

Methodological
Standards Available for Public Review
A critical component of wide adoption of the Ecological
Footprint is the development of methological standards
to ensure that Footprints are comparible wherever they
are calculated in the world. Check our home
page starting on Friday, December 2nd, for our first
set of standards availalbe for public review.